TORONTO – Former UFC champions and MMA legends Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (33-7-1 MMA, 4-3 UFC) and Tito Ortiz (16-10-1 MMA, 15-10-1 UFC) may have reached the end of the line.

Nogueira and Ortiz were each transferred to a Toronto-area hospital following losses to Frank Mir and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, respectively, on the main card of Saturday night’s UFC 140 event, and UFC president Dana White admitted each of them may have fought for the final time in the octagon.

Following the evening’s post-event press conference, which took place at Air Canada Centre, White said he would have to talk with each fighter individually, but he wasn’t willing to guarantee a UFC return for either athlete.

As of Saturday night, Ortiz was being inspected for potentially fractured ribs. The man formerly known as the “Huntington Beach Bad Boy” opened up aggressively in his fight, but a well-placed knee to the body sent Ortiz crashing to the ground, and “Lil Nog” pounded away until he earned the stoppage at the 3:15 mark of the first round. Ortiz writhed in pain for several moments before finally rising to his feet.

“Tito came out swinging,” White said of the performance. “Tito went after it in the beginning of the first round, and he got caught to the body.

“He’s in the hospital … with something. He could have a fractured or broken rib. Those things take a long time to recover from. We’ll see.”

White previously told Ortiz, who is now 1-6-1 in his past eight fights, that it was time to hang ‘em up following an October 2010 loss to Matt Hamill. However, Ortiz pleaded his way into one more fight and used the opportunity to shock Ryan Bader in a first-round submission win. Ortiz has since dropped back-to-back fights.

White didn’t seem exactly optimistic about another fight for Ortiz, who has expressed interest in a May trilogy bout with Forrest Griffin. However, he did say he would talk to “The People’s Champ” before making a final decision.

Meanwhile, Rodrigo Nogueira suffered a broken arm in his dramatic co-main event with Mir after refusing to tap to a deep kimura. UFC officials tweeted a picture of Nogueira’s X-ray, revealing the fractured appendage, and White said there may be additional shoulder and elbow damage. Nogueira will on Sunday fly to Los Angeles to seek surgical repair.

White also discussed a potential retirement with the 35-year-old Nogueira following his February 2010 loss to Cain Velasquez. Nogueira also made good on his reprieve, scoring a surprising knockout win over Brendan Schaub at UFC 134.

“The last time, I said after he got knocked out that ‘Big Nog’ should look at (retiring),” White said. “He got mad at me. He got all bummed out. Then he came out and pulled off that win with Schaub.

“‘Big Nog’ looked great tonight until that submission.”

Indeed, he did, rocking Mir before ultimately falling victim to the nasty finishing hold. But with Nogueira now on the shelf for what looks like a significant amount of time, White said he hopes the legendary Brazilian will at least consider calling an end to a career that dates back to 1999 and includes more than 40 fights – many of them all-out wars with fellow superstars Josh Barnett, Fedor Emelianenko, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic and Bob Sapp, among others.

“You’ve got to look at a guy’s entire career, not just how it’s ending,” White said. “‘Big Nog’ has been in wars. I was at the PRIDE fight when he fought Mirko ‘Cro Cop.’ ‘Cro Cop’ was just blasting him with kicks to the body and shots to the head. Then he ends up pulling off that submission win in the second round. He’s had a career where he’s been through wars.

“‘Big Nog’ is a nice guy, and he’s a guy whom I respect. I know they get pissed off at me when I say this stuff, but again, it doesn’t matter. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I’m the one that makes these decisions. I’m going to have to sit down and talk to him. I don’t want to see him get hurt – or anybody else.”

If Nogueira is done, he would leave with an octagon record of 4-3, including a February 2008 win over Tim Sylvia to become the UFC’s interim heavyweight champion, a title he would promptly lose to Mir in the pair’s first meeting. His accomplishments in PRIDE would qualify Nogueira as a certain Hall of Famer if one existed for the sport. Currently, the UFC only supports a UFC Hall of Fame, and “Big Nog” would have trouble earning a spot based solely on his work in the octagon.

Tito Ortiz, UFC Hall of Famer?

Meanwhile, Ortiz has fought all but one of his career contests in the UFC, earning him the distinction of holding more fights in the octagon than any other competitor in history. The former UFC light heavyweight champion often clashed with White, and often very publicly, but the UFC boss said Ortiz’s accomplishments have likely earned him a place in the promotion’s Hall of Fame.

“Tito has a significant place in the history of this sport, whether he and I had (differences or not),” White said. “When you really think about it, the battle between Tito and I [as well as] Chuck (Liddell) and I and Tito really did help build this thing in the beginning. It was a big story. You had people who love Tito and hated me and were on my side and didn’t like Tito. It was a pretty big real storyline that happened.

“I can be honest now and tell you, me and Tito at our absolute worst, when things were just as nasty as nasty could be behind the scenes was when he fought Lyoto Machida. That was probably one of the craziest times in my entire career since I’ve been here.”

It was prior to that UFC 84 clash that Ortiz infamously came to the weigh-ins with a T-shirt that read “Dana is my bitch!” The two also took part in a tense post-event press conference following Ortiz’s decision loss to Lyoto Machida.

“To explain to you guys how angry that guy used to make me, it was crazy,” White said. “It was literally crazy. Those were crazy times, man. It was weird.

“Someday you guys will see it all because most of it is on video. The video blogs that we shoot, those were video blogs that never went out.”

Ortiz’s longtime rival, Liddell, was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in July 2009 and then walked away from the sport one year later after suffering his third-straight knockout. Liddell currently serves in an executive role for the UFC, but White wasn’t sure Ortiz would be extended the same offer when his fighting days are finally over.

“Chuck is a guy who I really feel helped us build this business,” White said. “It’s easy to sit back now and look at the ‘monopoly’ of the UFC, but back in the day, everybody was coming into the business. PRIDE was bigger than we were. When money was easy, you could just make a phone call and raise $300 million. All these guys, everybody loves the fight business. Everybody wants to be in it, and everybody was trying to be in the fight business at that time. There were certain guys through the thick and the thin that were there for us in the time of need. There’s guys like Chuck, Matt Hughes, Forrest Griffin, Joe Rogan.

“When Joe Rogan was on ‘Fear Factor,’ I don’t know if I’ve ever said this publicly or not, but when I called Joe Rogan and said, ‘I think that you would be great for commentary in the UFC. What do you think? Are you interested?’ or something like that, they guy was on the highest-rated show in network television at the time, ‘Fear Factor.’ He did the first 15 UFCs for free. We didn’t pay Joe Rogan a dime for the first 15 UFCs. Joe Rogan gets paid now. Believe me, he gets paid! But just to show you the kind of stuff that happened early on in the early days. It’s easy to sit back now and call us a monopoly and say all this other stuff, but it was rough times back in the early days of the UFC.”

News on the future of both fighters may be slow in coming. White on Monday travels to Brazil to begin the casting process for the first-ever international version of “The Ultimate Fighter.”

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